Compassion involves an understanding of the suffering of others and a wish for it to be alleviated. It is therefore linked to the idea of rights. It requires a deliberate attempt to know the extent of discrimination and suffering locally and globally. It requires a willingness to engage with other people’s perspectives and feelings.

Compassion means that personal well-being is limited by a concern with the well-being of everybody, (though not to the extent that we should encourage misery until we are all smiling).

Embracing compassion involves replacing punitive approaches to the breaches of rules with professional duties of care and resourcefulness. However fractured the relationship between a young person and a setting might seem, it remains the duty of professionals to continue to ask: how can this young person be best supported to develop relationships and engage in learning? A compassionate education is one in which forgiveness is possible.